


beg forgiveness of the birds

by TheSoliloquy



Series: some lies are love [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Jon Snow is Azor Ahai, Mutual Manipulation, Queen Sansa Stark, Resurrection, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:06:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25618567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSoliloquy/pseuds/TheSoliloquy
Summary: The North loves her.He has taught her well, this woman of Winterfell and King’s Landing and The Eyrie.But now the Dead march South and Petyr must earn her forgiveness.or: The journey from Winterfell to King's Landing does not run smooth for the Queen in the North, her Hand, and her people.
Relationships: Petyr Baelish & Brynden Tully, Petyr Baelish/Sansa Stark
Series: some lies are love [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1856983
Comments: 9
Kudos: 56





	beg forgiveness of the birds

**Author's Note:**

> This took a lot longer to write than I expected, but here it is.  
> Second of a series- if you read the previous story 'part of you lives here', this one will make a lot more sense.
> 
> Sansa is aged-up to 20 years old. As always, I'm here for the whump.
> 
> Edit: A story in part 59 is taken from Dave Chappelle, who in turn took it from Iceberg Slim. It's a brilliant stand-up routine.

My brother asked the birds to forgive him; that sounds senseless, but it is right; for all is like an ocean, all is flowing and blending; a touch in one place sets up movement at the other end of the earth. It may be senseless to beg forgiveness of the birds, but birds would be happier at your side — a little happier, anyway — and children and all animals, if you were nobler than you are now. It’s all like an ocean, I tell you. Then you would pray to the birds too, consumed by an all-embracing love, in a sort of transport, and pray that they too will forgive you your sin. Treasure this ecstasy, however senseless it may seem to men.

**-The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.**

1.

She does not love him.

Petyr is a liar, yes, but not fool enough to lie to himself.

(Some nights he does anyway, when her arms are wound around him and his name is a sigh on her lips.)

2.

The North loves her.

How could they not?

Despite her own words, Sansa Stark is not a slow learner. Petyr has never believed it, not even when she was a child grasping at her father’s arm and fawning over a knight of flowers, and now, sat on her father’s chair dispensing knighthoods, neither does she.

Every day proves her worthy of her throne, every decision that values logic over mercy, allies over friends.

Petyr hears Ramsay’s screams as the dogs devour him, sits with his Valemen as she takes Karhold from the Karstarks and Last Hearth from the Umbers, listens to the approving murmurs wash through the hall.

He has taught her well, this woman of Winterfell and King’s Landing and The Eyrie.

3.

She cares for him, perhaps.

Is there another reason to seek the company of a sick man? There are long days of illness, weeks of recovery, and still she works at his bedside.

Mummery is a skill afforded to Sansa by necessity, but if this is mummery then all the theatres of Braavos have never seen talent like it.

Each night Petyr falls asleep with her fingers in his hair, each morning he wakes with her palm on his cheek. They do not make love, have not made love since White Harbour, but her presence is pleasure, her touch is ecstasy. When the maester mandates exercise Sansa is his guide, and the distance between them lessens with every step, until Petyr tires and she takes his arm.

It must seem strange to the other northmen, for the Queen in the North to favour a single southron lord so.

He asks her this as he turns Lothor’s reports in his head.

“I share my attentions equally amongst _all_ of my bannermen, Lord Baelish.” Is the Queen’s answer as they walk the courtyard.

“They think I’m here for a life debt, Petyr.” Is Sansa’s answer as they twine in the small hours.

“Here in my bed?”

“At your _side_.” Her voice is coloured with rebuke, “Playing nursemaid.”

Petyr turns this over in his mind. Do the lords think him weak? Do they think her gentle? He hasn’t yet decided if these changing perceptions are useful.

She seems to read his mind. “Most of them were there when we carried you from the dungeons.”

Useful, then.

“And are you? Here for a life debt?”

“That debt was repaid when we took Winterfell.”

Just so. Petyr nods his agreement.

“So why?”

“A brothel-keep asks why a woman lies with a man?”

Diversion. Evasion. All tactics he taught her. Petyr wants to laugh, to poke at her until she angers, but instead he gathers her close and buries his nose in her neck.

“Will you let it grow?” She pulls at his hair, “Curls are most becoming in the north.”

“You think me comely?”

“Oh, hush. How am I to see your face beneath all of this?”

There has been little use or energy for grooming since before Ramsay. Now a neat beard has become full and dark and coarse and, from the way she complains, the ruin of Sansa’s nights. Petyr nestles closer, rubs his cheeks against hers until she protests and- _gods_ , her laughter is addictive, a warm sound chased every moment they’re alone until propriety or her ire bids him silent.

Propped up on an elbow, Petyr smiles down at her.

“Do I look like one of your northmen?”

Sansa studies him with those blue Tully eyes. After a moment she reaches up and grasps him by the chin, squeezes until his lips begin to pout. Petyr’s ring is on her thumb, a simple silver band passed on from his father and furnished in Braavosi script.

“Do you _want_ to look like one of my northmen?”

“Decidedly not.”

She jostles his face, fingers digging into his cheeks. “You’ll look half a wildling soon enough.”

“You flatter me, Your Grace. Would that I could grow a beard that fierce.”

“I said _half_ a wildling.”

Petyr bites at her hand, her shoulder, her lips.

Her laughter…

 _This is how I will remember her,_ he thinks, _and it will be enough_. For sooner or later he will lose her, as sure as death in this world where songs and tales make mincemeat of lovesick boys. This is how he will remember her: gentle and cold, his hand in hers, sanguine in the low sunrise.

4.

She does not need him.

Not as she once did, at least.

Petyr learns to navigate the new way of things, an advisor in a sea of advisors, a lord in a rabble of lords. Unsurprisingly Bronze Yohn reacts to his recovery with all the cheer of a robbery victim, accustomed as he’s become to speaking for the Vale and strutting around like a pompous, leathered peacock, squires trailing behind like maggots to rot. (“He’s a good man.” Sansa says when he gives her this analogy.)

The image of a clever, amiable lord is one Petyr has cultivated over the years, but a fresh approach is needed.

The story Queen Sansa has weaved of their time in the Winterfell dungeons now casts him in a tender light, her uncle and protector trading his life for hers, and everyone from her dour half-brother to the droll onion knight believes it.

(It’s true, of course, but he does not want to remember that time and thanks Sansa not to speak of it in bed.)

It seems a shame to let such a well-told story go to waste.

Shaven cheeks and trimmed locks have two benefits: one, there is no hiding the weight he’s lost nor the shadows beneath his eyes, and the other, Sansa gifts him with furtive kisses so often, her attentions make it worthwhile to suffer the pitying glances of lords who would not otherwise give a shit whether Petyr lives or dies.

Admittedly, the lingering wet cough is harder to suffer… but he finds it quiets the boorish Lord Royce rather well, and it distracts Jon Snow when the crow catches a lingering touch between the Queen and Lord Protector.

Petyr’s mummery and Sansa’s tales earns him a place by her side, undisputed, legitimate: a grand place to enact grand plans.

But he is at the mercy of her favour and she knows it.

5.

First there is Jon Snow and his superstitions.

There were rumours the boy had died, and yet here he stands with tales of eternal night, of creatures who speak with the crackling of ice, of swords of glass and blue eyes and dead men and the end of all things, and with each sullen word Petyr loses more of his little faith in northmen and their wits.

Convincing the southrons of these tales is more difficult. It’s perhaps the only time Royce has deigned to agree with a _grubby man_ like Petyr Baelish, and with a bellow to the Great Hall no less.

“The Vale will not chase ghosts while the realm is at war!”

Petyr thinks him a useful tool: send in the bull and the bird comes floating after. His rasp pairs Royce’s thunder well.

“Your Grace,” He finds he does not need to raise his voice; the fuss of the hall quietens at the sound, “Lord Snow, you must understand our concerns. The Vale is not so far from the Lannister army and they will have noted our allegiance with the North. The longer we remain, the longer our lands are defenceless.”

A roar of approval from his men and Petyr wishes the Bronze Lord’s cavernous lungs weren’t so close to his ears.

Jon Snow nods grimly.

“I understand, Lord Baelish, truly, but if we don’t defend the Wall the entire realm will be defenceless. It won’t matter how far south you run.”

Royce bristles. “ _Run_? Nobody is _running_ , boy!”

A different tact, then.

“Do you have proof?” He asks, “Of these… White Walkers?”

Snow grimaces, and when Petyr looks to Sansa he sees the reproach in her eyes.

“Only my word.”

6.

Next there is a raven from the South.

_Cersei of House Lannister, First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, summons the rebel and Kingslayer Sansa Lannister to King’s Landing, to bend the knee to her rightful Queen or suffer the fate of all traitors._

7.

Sansa has Petyr read the letter aloud twice before she dismisses Brienne.

They are alone in her solar then, the Lord Protector and his Queen, naught between them but the crackling of fire, years of lies, and a small patch of stone that does not come clean of his blood no matter how the maids scrub at it.

The Queen’s face is blank and Petyr is nothing if not a talented mimic.

“Lannister.” She says.

“Your Grace?”

“She addressed this letter to Sansa _Lannister_.”

“It appears so, Your Grace.”

Her eyes narrow. “Strange, seeing as my marriage was annulled.”

“Strange indeed, Your Grace.” Petyr furrows his brow, “Perhaps she is not aware?”

“Perhaps.” The word is slow to leave her mouth, each syllable peppered with the pop of her lips.

Sansa reaches to the side and grasps a dusty tome. It’s a book on marriage, he sees, and when she drops it in front of her with a dull _thwap_ there is a serious edge to her manner. A minute of silence passes as she flicks through the book.

“Another boring read, Your Grace. Perhaps Maester Wolkan can find better.”

No answer, not even a glance in his direction.

“Annulment,” Sansa reads, eventually, finger pressing hard against the words, “Of marriage in the eyes of the Seven may only be granted upon request by one of the wedded pair.”

A single sentence is all she plans to read, it seems, for she slams the book closed and looks at him as a teacher would a student.

Petyr’s mouth twists.

“I believe there’s also a clause about death.” He quips.

“Did you pose as Tyrion?”

“I don’t have his seal.” Not entirely an answer, and her face says as much, “I did not.”

“Did you pose as me?”

She says the words oh so innocently, as if the ire isn’t building in her eyes, as if he doesn’t know exactly where this conversation will lead them.

“Of course not, Your Grace.”

“So, then, how did you come by my marriage annulment? That paper you waved so proudly?” She raises a hand when he opens his mouth, “You did _not_ bribe the High Sparrow. If he is pious enough to whip Cersei through the streets, he is too pious to take a flesh peddler’s coin.”

 _Too pious for this life_ , Petyr thinks, and imagines a plume of green fire and smoke. He doesn’t answer, instead presses his lips closed and bows his head in contrition.

“Are you capable of the truth, my lord?”

“You know that I am.”

There is a rising tension in her shoulders, a slow burning rage, he thinks, but when Sansa looks at him with _grief_ he almost kneels right there and then.

“If Tyrion isn’t already dead, he will be, soon enough.” Petyr spreads his hands, beseeching, “I only wanted to accelerate matters.”

“And make me a Queen unfaithful to her vows.”

“You married him in front of the new gods. We could marry in front of the old.”

“Like I did Ramsay? How many times must I marry?” She laughs, an empty, mocking sound, “ _You_ are the reason I married Tyrion Lannister. _You_ are the reason I married Ramsay Snow. For a man who claims to love me you’ve hurt me far more than Cersei.”

Petyr glances at the door, briefly, knowing the door between them and Brienne is not so thick, and wets his lips before he answers. “I _do_ love you, more than you can ever know.”

“Joffrey claimed to love me, and then he gave me my father’s head.”

“Sansa-“

“The swing of that sword was as good as yours, Petyr.”

And it was. He had used those exact words, delirious and dying in a cell below their feet.

“I only want what’s best for you, my love-“

“ _Your Grace_.”

Petyr takes her correction in stride, “Your _Grace_ , I am your most loyal advisor-“

“My _brother_ is my most loyal advisor.”

 _Your brother is a fool._ He bites back the words.

“Half-brother. And he would have you stay here. You belong on the Iron Throne, not holed up in the North.”

“This is my _home_.”

“Daenerys Targaryen will war with Cersei and whoever wins will burn your home to the ground.” A flicker of hesitation and he seizes his chance, “You are the best of all of them, Your Grace. Why stop at one kingdom?”

Sansa stares at him, then, hands clasped atop the desk, and Petyr has the unfamiliar sensation of being _seen_.

“A fine play you have crafted,” She murmurs, twirling the ring on her thumb, “Were the Tears of Lys the first act, or did that come before?”

“Sansa-” He reaches across the desk but she leans away.

“Brienne.” A familiar clanking as the wench re-enters, “Please escort Lord Baelish back to his chambers. He is feeling weary.”

Oh the insolence of this girl. Petyr’s jaw works, a pithy retort playing at his tongue before he settles instead for a regal bow and a short “Your Grace”, striding from the room with Brienne at his heels.

8.

“If you truly care for her,” The wench tells him as they walk, “You’ll stay, no matter the reward.”

9.

It is a tense meeting that follows, the council of bannermen bickering like children at supper.

A knife is pulled at some point, Petyr thinks, or perhaps a sword, and Yohn Royce takes offense at a wildling’s overzealous use of the phrase “fucking southern cunts.”

He is too busy watching Sansa to pay much attention.

She doesn’t come to him that night, nor the nights after, as the days pass and the air pales and the men grow restless. Petyr coils around cold sheets and breathes in her scent until it fades into memory.

10.

A memory of a sleepless boy:

Every night for a month he had dreamt he died there on the banks of the Trident, with Brandon’s blade between his ribs and Riverrun’s water in his lungs. The Tullys left him to rot and the world held no care for his bones.

But when he woke, the same was true.

 _We are little people_ , he told his father. _We are all little people, you and I, and mother, and grandfather and- and-_

And the lords of the land played with their like, careless, reckless, flailing fists across the realm in fits of pride, using them up and discarding them and worrying not a bit how they ruined the lives below.

11.

Samwell Tarly finds him in the library with Lothor, poring through histories and tales of the First Men and more, of the Long Night and Bran the Builder.

“I hadn’t thought you were interested in, err,” The plump man gestures vaguely at the open books, “This sort of thing, my lord.”

“Simply conducting research.” Petyr plasters a genial smile to his face. “Samwell, correct?”

“Yes, my lord.” Tarly glances nervously at Lothor, relaxed at the side and picking his nails with a dagger.

“Don’t mind Ser Lothor. I oft talk aloud to myself and find his company disguises the insanity of it.” The jest earns him a tittering smile. _This one is not at all like Lord Randall._ Sam the Slayer, they call him, but all Petyr sees is a craven. “Please, sit. I’ve met your father a number of times. Remarkable man. A great soldier.”

From the awkward set of Tarly’s shoulders he does not agree with the sentiment, only smiles again and takes the nearby chair. Petyr pushes a little further.

“I thought it most strange he never brought you to court.”

“My brother Dickon was more suited to court, my lord.”

“Is that why he sent you to the wall?” A nod. He is making the man uncomfortable but Petyr finds that those like Samwell Tarly, good men, soft men, latch too quickly to comfort. “My father was also a great soldier.”

Samwell looks up in surprise, studies him and his robes and his doublet. The soft son of a soldier is a tale for the ages, a shared plight. Lord Baelish had been a loving father, in truth, despite Petyr’s failures, but that fact is best left unsaid to this unloved boy.

“Some men find their greatness on the field, others…” Petyr sweeps his hand over a page, “find their greatness in learning.”

It’s a lesson years in the making, the first and most basic in a series of revelations too morally grey for this green man, but it’s a lesson Samwell Tarly must be told. What use is a sharp mind dulled by inhibition?

Tarly nods slowly, shoulders squaring, chin lifting. For a moment he looks almost a true crow of the Nights Watch.

“What can I help you with, my lord?”

Funny, how easy it is to feed a starved man. Petyr smiles.

“Tell me of the Queen’s _brother_.”

12.

He believes the craven Samwell Tarly far more than the noble Jon Snow.

Part of this is, of course, Petyr’s lack of faith in Stark men, in Eddard and his honour and ‘ _perhaps I was wrong to distrust you’_ , but this one, this plump and soft Sam The Slayer is a learned man.

Prod a learned man the right way and all sorts of secrets come spilling out.

Petyr waits until the bastard makes his daily pilgrimage to the crypts before he follows. Jon Snow turns at the sound of his approach and the sight is almost unsettling; Eddard Stark peering at Petyr over the bastard’s shoulder, a guardian from the next life. _He warned me not to trust him_ , the stone Ned might say, _stick him with the pointy end, open his guts, open his throat, Jon._

A good thing indeed that Petyr Baelish is not a superstitious man.

There is another statue beside Eddard and he sees it now, sees the differences rather than the likenesses. Jon Snow is the spit of Lyanna, even if there is none of Rhaegar in him.

“Lord Snow.” He greets with a smile.

“Lord Baelish,” The bastard does not return it and Petyr wonders if dourness is hereditary, “My apologies, did you have need of me?”

Oh yes, he needs this crow-bastard-boy-man on his side, more so now that Sansa is all but lost to him.

“Only to speak, forgive me if I have interrupted.” Petyr nods to Eddard Stark’s likeness, then moves to back away, “It can wait.”

“You haven’t interrupted. Please, speak your mind.”

“Oh, I’ll spare you my mind.” Petyr chuckles, “I regret we have found ourselves in disagreement these past few weeks. I wanted to remedy that.”

Snow looks uncomfortable. “There’s nothing to remedy, my lord. ‘tis a hard thing to ask of people-“

“But the right thing. I’ve spent enough time with Samwell Tarly to realise that now.”

“My Lord?”

“The Vale is yours.”

It’s amusing, how quickly the confusion transforms the young-old Jon Snow into a mere boy. The same had been true of Eddard, eyeing the door of a brothel as if Littlefinger would admit a jest at any moment.

“Although, my men are not happy.” Petyr smirks, “I had the right of it when I asked for proof. Those such as Yohn Royce will not happily follow the words of a stranger.”

Jon nods in understanding, eyes flickering as he builds and re-builds ideas in his head, thoughts plain as the hairs on his chin.

“Does the Queen know? She is convinced you’ll take your army south.”

“Your sister and I have not seen eye to eye, lately, ‘tis true, but I once promised her the North. I intend to help her keep it.” _If fighting winter is the way forth, so be it._

But he has said too much now, perhaps, or shown too much. Jon Snow eyes him wearily.

“What are your intentions with Sansa?”

Gods, what a formal translation of _are you fucking her?_ Petyr frowns. “Intentions?”

“I’ve seen you around her. It is not proper.”

A mental note to file away: Petyr had not thought them so obvious. Irritation rears itself in his chest, at this boy who buried his head until a month’s past, this boy who presumes to know him.

He cocks his head. “And are you the judge of what is _proper_?”

And here is a mistake Petyr is doomed to repeat, provoking a Stark man- this one at least has enough sense not to attack the Lord Paramount of the Vale, enough honour not to attack the weaker man. A tense look passes between the two of them before Jon turns, and Petyr fights the urge to sigh at his own stupidity.

_You need him on your side._

No matter. There’s a trick _(weakness, flaw, vulnerability)_ he has learnt since Winterfell’s cells, discovered to his own detriment one morning while Sansa lay abed and watched him shave. It had been before they fought. A happier time. He’d held his breath for but a few seconds and woken on the floor, head cradled in her lap.

Petyr’s lungs have healed some in the time since but the effect is sufficient; his knees give out under the sudden wave of dizziness and he catches himself on the wall, slapping hand against stone.

A shoulder is below his, suddenly, a hand on his arm, and Jon Snow lowers him carefully down. Petyr sits against the wall and breathes, imagines, for a second, the patter of Sansa’s bare feet on the ground. Lyanna’s son crouches beside him, watching.

“Are you well, my lord?”

Petyr waves off his concern with a lazy smile.

“Your Northern air disagrees with me. I fear I’ll never be warm again.” He grasps Jon by the forearm and looks him in the eye, “I care for your sister, Jon, no more than that. Have you ever promised to protect her?”

Jon’s eyes shine. “I have.”

“Then you know why I must stay.” And Petyr gives another smile, of the sort he usually reserves for Sansa: gentle and wicked and humourless all at once.

 _Help me_ , it says, _and I will help you_.

13.

They have just reached the courtyard, side by side, when the cry goes up around them.

 _Brandon Stark_ , comes the chorus, _Brandon Stark has returned! The true Lord of Winterfell!_

It’s enough to make Littlefinger laugh. Or it would be, rather, if he were not wearing the mask of Petyr Baelish.

This little Lord of Winterfell is nothing more than a bundle of furs on a cart, nothing of consequence but for the company he keeps: a man, gaunt and long-legged, greyer than the winter sky.

14.

Benjen Stark calls himself a dead man and drives a knife through his heart to prove it.

15.

A memory of a pious boy:

In Braavos there were more Gods than temples. His father shunned them all.

But his mother Alayne, the perfect Westerosi, she had worshipped the Seven. There was no sept when she came to the Fingers so Petyr’s father had built her one, a ramshackle hut hammered together with mortar and no small amount of patience. Lord Baelish had carved the faces himself as a wedding gift, the Seven Who Are One, and each week Petyr’s mother took her little son by the hand and taught him to pray.

A candle for the Father and his justice; the Mother and her love; the Warrior, the Smith, the Maiden, the Crone.

“Where is the seventh?” He had asked her, once and never again, “The Stranger?”

“His blessings are not for us, sweetling.” She had replied, and held him against her, “The Mother gives. The Stranger takes away.”

When Petyr returned home with a torn chest and a cavern where his heart had been, he took a dagger to the sept and carved for hours, digging steel into rock until his knees ached and his hands bled and his sweat gathered beneath him, and his father came, then, and found him cursing a seventh candle that would not light.

Petyr wept in his arms until dawn.

The sept was gone the next time he returned, and his father with it, swept away by a sea that left no sign it ever stood.

16.

He finds her in the Godswood.

“Were you praying?”

There is a melancholy to her, more so now than ever before.

“I don’t think I believe in the Gods, not anymore.” Sansa’s lips quirk into some semblance of a smile. Flakes of snow melt against the circlet of iron perched on her head and settle, frozen, on her lashes as she looks out at the lake, “My father would sit here for hours, in this exact spot.”

“Did _he_ pray?” Petyr doesn’t care, not in the least, but he has never wished so desperately for the weight of her gaze.

“I think he just enjoyed the peace and quiet.” Another quirk of the lips. A beat of silence. Petyr watches her hair turn white, imagines how cold her lips must be. Eventually she looks at him, reluctant, and studies him from head to toe, “Jon said you took ill in the crypts this morning.”

“A passing dizziness.”

“Hmm.” Her gaze is almost enough to make him feel faint again. “Why are you here?”

He blinks. “I wanted to speak with you-“

“No, _here_ , in Winterfell. You could have taken your men and left this all behind.”

“I promised to-“

“Give me the North, yes, I know, but I have it.” She sighs, frustrated, “I broke my promise. Are you truly waiting for me to change my mind?”

“No.” Petyr takes a step forward, and another, until he is close enough to see the blue of her eyes, “I promised to protect you.”

“You already have-“

“No, I haven’t. Not until you are safe. Not until you are old and wrinkled, and your hair is white, and your grandchildren play in the courtyard, and everyone who wishes you harm is dead.” He lets out a slow, steady breath, “Not until _I_ am dead.”

Sansa laughs, once. “Do you wish me harm?”

“Never.”

Petyr’s so close he could reach and twine her hair in his fingers but he resists, only stands before her with open hands and an open face. There are tears in her eyes, unshed and pooling against the blue.

When she speaks it is a whisper. “I don’t want your love. Or your protection.”

“Whatever you want of me, I will give it.”

“You are a cruel man to speak to me so.”

“Gently?”

“As though you are not wicked. As though I could forget what you have done.”

“And what of forgiveness?” He asks, and his thumb runs over the space where his little finger had been, “Was Ramsay not enough? I would have given my life for you, my love. What else is there?”

“Everything.”

“I have already promised you that-” But Sansa shakes her head, impatient.

“No, everything of _you_.” She cries, “I want everything, your body, your mind, I want all of it.”

“You have it.”

“I want your _fealty_.”

Petyr draws his dagger and drops to the snow before her, offers it in his palms. “I swear by the old gods and the new-“

She knocks the blade from his hands and fists her hand into his doublet. “You don’t believe in them. Swear on _me_.”

“Sansa-“

_“Swear it.”_

He reaches up to grasp her wrist but she doesn’t let go, not even as he leans forward and presses his face to her thigh. “I swear it. I swear it, Sansa.” A breathless chant against her until she gathers him into her arms, his face against her stomach, hands clinging to her cloak. “I swear it, my love.”

It is warm in her embrace and _gods_ Petyr has missed her, missed her laughter, her company. He can feel her around him, her hands in his hair, across his back. Sansa tugs and he rises, holds her gaze as she holds his face.

“Do _not_ betray me,” She says, “Or I’ll kill you myself.”

And then she kisses him.

17.

He can taste the salt of her tears.

With a push Petyr is on his back in the snow and- _fuck_ \- Sansa is straddling him and there are too many layers, _far_ too many layers between them. She takes his mouth again and moulds her body to his, fingers pulling at the nape of his neck until his throat is bared, lips moving across his skin and-

A loud clearing of a throat behind them.

Sansa freezes.

When she moves it is only to sit up, and the press of her rear against Petyr’s lap is a little too comfortable for company.

“I’m not sure Father would approve.”

Petyr cranes his head back and there, upside down, unimpressed, and very much alive, is Arya Stark.

18.

Arya Stark makes him nervous.

She hadn’t when she was a child, just a chaotic echo of Lyanna Stark come to terrorise the halls of the Red Keep. Even at Harrenhal, hiding in plain sight by Tywin’s side, the girl was nothing more than that: a girl, small and wiry and wild.

Yet now… Arya is something else entirely.

And the dead look she levels on Petyr there in the Godswood is enough to realise it.

He leaves them to their reunion.

19.

“And nobody different has entered? Nobody… _unfamiliar_?”

The guards exchange a curious look.

“No one, m’lord.”

20.

That night Sansa comes to him for the first time in weeks, slipping silently through the door and bolting it behind her.

Petyr turns in the bed to watch her approach.

“You should lock your door.”

“You just have.”

The Queen huffs but shrugs off her furs all the same, and then her gown, her shift, her smallclothes, peeling away the layers until she is stood bare and beautiful, skin pebbling in the cold air. For a man so accustomed to naked women, Petyr is awestruck. It’s been too long since he has seen her.

“We didn’t finish what we started earlier,” She says, and pulls back the bedcovers to sit beside him, pushing at his shoulder until he is flat on his back. “Did you ever believe in the Gods?”

 _She will be the death of me._ Petyr laughs, humourless. “I thought you had something else in mind, sweetling. Must we discuss religion right now?”

He reaches for her but she slaps his hand aside and presses gently against his chest, eyebrow cocked. Petyr sighs.

“As a child, yes.”

“What happened?”

“They didn’t give me what I wanted.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“Isn’t it? People light candles for the Gods, give them coin and blood. The smallfolk pray for rain and peace and the nobles pray for sons and power. If the Gods are real, why would they favour the rich over the poor?” Sansa’s hand is warm against the silk of his tunic and Petyr fights the urge to reach for her again, “Worship is a worthless pursuit, my dear.”

“Wives are taught to worship their husbands.”

“A lie to ensure docile wives.”

“Won’t you worship me?” She cocks her head. Petyr grins wickedly.

“How?”

“Kiss me.”

But when he leans up to her lips Sansa only pushes again and moves back from his reach.

“No, not there.” She lies down, hair spreading across the pillow in a sea of red, and tugs at his tunic.

 _Ah_. Petyr begins at her neck, traces her pulse downwards, sweeps his tongue along her collarbone. Her breasts next, each peak drawn into his mouth until she is gasping, and then the hollow between them, every rib, her hips, her stomach…

“ _There_.” She breathes as he buries his face between her legs, “ _There_ , _Petyr_.”

And the sounds he draws from her lips are sweeter than any prayer.

21.

He takes her that night, again and again, and when she is tired and bleary Petyr pulls her against him and burrows them both beneath the furs, drawing soft circles against her stomach as her breathing slows. There is no sound but for the wind against the castle walls.

“Uncle Benjen wants us to evacuate the North.” She murmurs, eventually, just as he thinks her asleep, “If we take a stand at the Twins, the Neck might slow them down. But we need dragonglass, and Daenerys Targaryen sits on a rather large pile of it.”

“I daresay her dragons may be more useful.”

“An alliance with a Targaryen will mean bending the knee.” And from the stiffening of her limbs, it’s not something Sansa will entertain.

“I believe the Ironborn have a saying… He who kneels may rise again.”

“I am no _he_.” The mutter is laden with ire, and Petyr kisses her hair and her neck in appeasement. “And the Northerners are no Ironborn. It will only give them reason to doubt me.”

He hums in thought.

“Has your brother ever been with a woman?” At this Sansa turns in his arms, confused, and Petyr presses a quick kiss to her nose as distraction, “If the rumours are true, Jon Snow has fulfilled his vows. He is no longer of the Night’s Watch. There’s nothing to stop him marrying.”

Understanding dawns on her with quickness.

“Jon will do whatever I ask.” A pause, “But I won’t push him.”

_No, she knows how it feels to be given away._

At his smile Sansa pulls him close and a few long moments are lost to a kiss. When they part, her eyes are fever bright and certain.

“How does one legitimise a bastard?”

22.

Jon Snow becomes Jon Stark, heir of Winterfell, within the week.

He leaves for Dragonstone the next day, and with him go Davos Seaworth, a dozen men, and an offer sealed with a single direwolf.

23.

There is a boy, also, who goes by Weasel and attaches himself to the onion knight with great stubbornness.

Petyr gives him a vial of tears.

“In case things do not go to plan.” He tells the boy, and then, “They say she is immortal.”

Arya Stark smiles with Weasel’s mouth.

“Valar Morghulis.”

24.

Next to leave are Benjen Stark and the Wildlings.

 _Gather my people,_ are Sansa orders, _Send them South. Meet us at the Twins._

Petyr has the great fortune of seeing them off and asks, innocently, for Brienne’s company only to amuse himself with the sight of Tormund’s advances. The red man has the eyes of a lunatic and speaks only in exclamations. It delights Petyr.

“Little toe!” The Wildling howls, “They say you charge coin for cunts in the south! Stay away from the big woman.”

“I assure you, she is quite safe from me.”

“Ha! It’s your safety I worry for! If your prick is as small as you, she will snap it in half!” Tormund claps his back hard enough to sting, then drops his voice to a sly rasp, “I heard the screams from your room last night, little toe. No woman ever screamed like that for me. I wonder if the big one screams!”

25.

Then goes Theon Greyjoy…

Petyr Baelish is not one to forget, and there is a great deal to remember when he looks at the craven.

( _-skin splitting, bones breaking, rope chafing, a parasite writhing above him-)_

“Theon saved me.” Sansa warns when he ponders plans for an accident to befall the wretch.

 _No,_ I _saved you,_ Petyr thinks, _he’d have done nothing without my whispers in his ear._ And he tells her so, over and over until he angers and Sansa pulls him aside, placates him with kisses and affection.

“We need the Ironfleet.” She breathes against him, “Let him be, Petyr. Let him be.”

Of course Petyr considers arranging the accident anyway, a mishap on the journey to Pyke, or a poorly tended horse, perhaps, or thieves in the east with more steel than sense…

But no, she knows him too well and he can’t afford to anger her again, not so soon after his promise.

26.

They are last: Sansa and the North, Petyr and the Vale, a train of refugees trailing down the King’s Road.

Petyr waits by Bran Stark’s cart as Sansa lingers in farewell, hand pressed against ice and stone.

There are no tears, only a dry and bitter weight that darkens her face with each loss.

Her father, mother, brothers. Now her home.

( _I’ll never see it again_ , she had said once.)

27.

Fuck, Petyr hates the North.

Yes, it is beautiful, and yes, it is peaceful and regal, but _why the fuck is it so cold?_

Any meagre comforts he gained from Winterfell are lost now, buried deep in furs and layers of lordly calm even as his toes freeze in his boots. As a boy Petyr had thought the Vale winters to be cold, but now he sees the truth of it.

Small wonder these northerners are a dour bunch.

On the orders of the Queen, their armies make camp at Moat Cailin and shepherd the train of refugees through and into the Neck.

“I’ll not leave the North until my people are safe.” She declares and the smallfolk love her all the more.

It’s the Margaery in her speaking, Petyr realises, and he counts the teachers Sansa has used to piece herself together. Him. Cersei. Cat and Ned. Tyrion, even, shining through in arguments with her bannermen.

She is herself only at night.

Sansa, only, in his arms, against his mouth, cries and grunts muffled behind bitten lips as they fuck in hidden corners, against crumbling walls, all hastily untied breeches and hitched skirts.

They are careful but only just, aided by Petyr’s men and coin when, really, he needs to practice caution with _her_ as he does with all the rest of it- but their trysts are few enough they are like gold to him. She has him lost with every squeeze of her thighs.

“Lord Baelish.” The Queen will greet in the morning, under the watchful eye of her men.

But here, now, with him between her legs:

“Petyr.” She sighs, “Petyr, Petyr. _Oh_ , Petyr.”

28.

From the refugees they separate able-bodied men and women, boys and girls above twelve.

It would be madness in any other life.

Hells, Petyr couldn’t win a duel at fifteen years of age and now they’ll send children against dead men and mythical beings. And if the wildlings’ and crows’ words are true, it won’t be enough.

Brienne takes charge of the women and girls herself, piling them into the courtyard with blunted swords and running through drill after drill, attack and defence, footwork. It’s a strange sight indeed, lines of smallfolk and nobles together, dresses muddied as they swing with awkwardness. Petyr sits on the ramparts and listens to the sound of it all as he calculates and plans, does not speak even when the ever-silent Bran Stark takes a place beside him without greeting.

He keeps his head bent over the ledger.

 _What else?_ Fighting in dresses won’t do but they have no clothing to spare.

Material will need to be sent for, then, breeches and tunics sewn, the cut of which he is sure Sansa will want a say in. Carts of wheat already trundle towards The Twins to be stored for their final numbers, not only from the North but the Vale and the Riverlands too.

 _We don’t have enough for Winter, lad_ , the Blackfish had written, _unless we can eat your gold._

More will be needed if Daenerys Targaryen joins them, and more still if Petyr’s ravens to the Reach are answered; should all go well, they’ll need to feed half of the kingdom.

It’s lucky, then, that they have the former Master of Coin at their side.

Petyr jots down his workings as the women train, glancing up only when a new call takes his attention.

“Look around! Grip! Ready! Open up!”

All things he’d learnt as a boy, even before he’d gone to Riverrun. Unsurprisingly, Lyanna Mormont takes to the forms like a bear to a forest. _Arya Stark will like this one_. Sansa, on the other hand, looks very much like every move is a labour.

No matter. The Queen won’t be on the battlefield. Only the sight of her swinging a sword with the smallfolk will suit their needs.

“They love her.”

He almost startles at Bran’s voice, after so much silence. The boy hasn’t even looked at him.

A glance back at the courtyard and Petyr sees Sansa is watching them, her sword driven into the ground as she rests. The strain in her eyes is clear even from here, the tell-tale look of sleepless nights, of restless thoughts and an active mind.

“She’s their Queen, my lord.”

He meets her gaze and Sansa smiles before she turns away, a small quirk of her lips that, should anyone be watching, would be more likely for her beloved little brother than the man counting pennies beside him.

“I’m no lord.”

“My apologies, Bran.” Yet it seems strange to call him simply ‘Bran’, this old-young boy with the stare of something _other_.

Bran turns this stare on Petyr now and it’s enough to prickle the hairs of his neck.

“How long has she been _your_ Queen, Lord Baelish?”

29.

A few well-placed words send Brienne one way and the Queen’s nightguard the other.

Sansa is awake when he enters, curled on her pallet, and she reaches out and winds her arms around his waist as he slides beneath the furs. It comforts her to hold him like this, he knows, to have some semblance of control in a life that has afforded her so little of it.

She falls asleep on top of him, face nestled against his chest, hands fisted in his tunic.

Petyr listens to her breathe until the sun rises, and wonders on Valyrian daggers and three-eyed-ravens.

30.

The causeway is, as ever, a wholly miserable experience.

Petyr entertains the men around him with tales of the capital, truths gleaned from whores of the debauchery of Westeros’ nobles and the sheer variety of debased acts they craved. Most of the nobles are dead now, of course, and the rest are their sworn enemies. As ever, there is no easier weapon than slander.

So Petyr regales them.

He tells them of Ser Tomas Manning and his penchant for old crones, (“The looser the skin the better”), weaves stories of Boros Blount and his taste for moonblood, and remembers the Stokeworths and the mountain of towels needed to dry their rivers of sweat. The tales are endless and every shade of gaudy. Sansa rides ahead in the train with Brienne and Podrick, far enough not to hear his lewd obscenities, close enough to hear the reaction it provokes.

The many exploits of the Lord and Lady Staunton are particularly captivating tales, ones that involve pretty boys and wooden pegs tied with straps, and the northmen listen and jeer and howl with mirth.

“How can a man watch his wife do that?” Calls Robett Glover.

Petyr flashes a wicked smile.

“With his breeches around his ankles, my lord.” And they roar all the more.

31.

Halfway down the Neck the Crannog girl, Meera Reed, separates Petyr, the Starks, and a meagre entourage and bids them follow, slipping into the swamp with her net and spear.

“My father is expecting us.” She says and nothing more when they ask, and she leads them deeper and deeper, through half-drowned land that sucks at their feet, past poisoned flowers, under pale trees so thick the daylight hits the mossy ground in sparse scatters of grey.

Riverfolk have never been friends of the Crannogmen. Even the courtly Lord Hoster, for all his preaching of respect, had little more than distaste for them. Not so with Petyr. He and Edmure had spent their summers playing at bog devils on the banks of the Trident, fashioning rafts from tree branches and twine, sinking below the water until their lungs burned.

But this Meera Reed… The way she moves, he wonders if the Crannogmen aren’t indeed half-frog.

Petyr fares well enough, nimble and light as they weave between the vines, but the heavy-footed soldiers do not. More than once Brienne must be pulled free from peat, and Bran is swapped between carriers as often as a whore at an orgy.

Eventually bog gives way to water, and a row of small, thin boats await them.

“We are close.” Meera rummages in the thickets and pulls free wooden poles four times her height, “Use these. Don’t step into the water or the quicksand will take you.”

It takes little more than an hour on the water before they see it: a great floating castle, green and _alive_ , a gnarled tower of stone held together by vine and moss, clinging to its crannog as a toad clings to a lily pad.

Oh, very few outsiders have enjoyed such an elusive sight.

Greywater Watch.

32.

Petyr half expects to be greeted by Snarks and Grumkins.

Instead it is a Hound.

“Hello, little bird.” He grunts, and Sansa smiles.

33.

As it turns out, Petyr has already met the Crannog Lord.

“Were you not at the tourney of Harrenhal?”

Howland Reed’s smile does not reach his eyes. “Well-remembered, Lord Baelish. You were but a boy at the time.”

“You’re a memorable man, my lord.”

It’s a half-truth, although Petyr neglects the rest. Cat had spent the entire tourney swooning after the mighty Brandon Stark; Howland Reed just happened to have been in the periphery. But still, he is certainly not a man to be forgotten, smaller and slighter than even Petyr, draped in bronze scales that shimmer like shales of fish darting in the shallows, with a knotted beard and hair the colour of fungus, and dressed in wrappings of green and brown.

If he were to stand still, Petyr fancies he might lose sight of him.

“Does Greywater ever make _anchor_?” He asks, for lack of a better word, as they walk around the castle.

“Yes, when needs must.” Howland strokes his beard. He had proven as enigmatic as legend until Petyr began asking after the castle. “Sometimes the waters are still and we have no desire or need to move on.”

“And when you do desire to move on?”

They leave for the Twins in the night, the crannog and castle and all, yet there is not a lick of wind. The strange little lord leans over the mossy parapet and motions for Petyr to do the same.

“The lowest level of the castle is a galley,” He points down at where crannog meets stone, “We use oars in freshwater. Or poles in the marsh, as Meera brought you.”

 _As simple as that_. Petyr frowns.

“How did she find you so easily? ‘tis little wonder the ravens have such trouble.”

But Howland Reed only smiles vaguely and wanders away, scales glittering.

_Worth a try._

A clang draws Petyr’s attention and he throws another glance over the parapet, seeing the distant forms of Brienne and Podrick sparring in the courtyard, their guard watching with Thoros and Beric Dondarrion and, to the side, sat shoulder to shoulder, Sandor Clegane and Sansa. An uncomfortable feeling twinges deep in Petyr’s gut.

“You are the whoremonger.”

The Red Priestess’ voice startles him out of his reverie.

 _Gods, this one is quieter than Varys._ And her stare, he notes, is even more unnerving than Bran’s. At least the boy doesn’t _smile_. This woman’s presence is enough to make his skin itch.

“I prefer brothel-keep, if you must.” Petyr turns away to hide his irritation. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“We _have_ met before. In Winterfell. The sickness had you, it is no wonder you do not remember.”

Curious, that this stranger had been allowed at his sickbed. Her imperious tone rankles him more than he can afford to show.

“Not officially met, then.”

“You called for her while you slept.” This the Priestess says so abruptly, with such nonchalance, it means nothing at first. Petyr blinks. “Your Queen. Many times, in fact. It softened the hate she bears for you.”

 _‘Bears_.’ She means for him to note the word. Rage bubbles in Petyr’s chest and for a moment his focus is on control, control alone, to keep it from spilling through the mask. From the glimmer in the woman’s eyes he is not successful.

“You presume much, _priestess_.”

“I saw her heart in the flames.”

Petyr scoffs. “And what else did you see?”

The Red Woman smiles.

“You are a luckless man, Petyr Baelish, to lose two loves in one lifetime.”

She leaves him standing alone on the parapet.

34.

The Hound scowls when he interrupts them, and the calming hand Sansa places on the wretch’s arm does nothing to ease Petyr’s foul mood.

“I had an interesting conversation with the Red Priestess.” He says the moment they are out of earshot, strolling Greywater’s narrow garden paths, her arm in his.

“Melissandre?” Sansa’s face darkens, “Ser Davos won’t be happy. I’d thought Winterfell would be the last we saw of her.”

“We?” He asks, and continues at her questioning look, “She’s under the impression she and I have met.”

She shook her head. “I banished her before you woke.”

“And before that?”

“You think I’d let a strange woman into your bedchambers?” Her tone is light, teasing, and Petyr feels the tension ease if only a little. “She’s obsessed with my brother. I’d banish her again but Sandor insists we need her.”

 _We’ll be rid of her soon enough_ , Petyr thinks, and says, “Sandor, is it?”

At his tone Sansa shoots a disapproving glare and drags him into an alcove, slim hands pushing until his back hits the stone. It’s almost intimidating, _almost_ , as she holds him there, eyes dark, fingers flexing against his chest.

“Are you jealous, my lord?” She asks, finally, and Petyr sneers.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

Sansa’s hands glide upwards, a palm cupping his cheek, the other brushing through his hair. His father’s ring is cool against his skin.

“How embarrassing.” She tugs at his ear, “The Lord of Harrenhal envies a cut-throat.”

“Don’t. I’m in no mood to jest.”

The clangs of sparring quicken in the distance, coloured with thuds and curses and a strange cackling that must be Thoros of Myr. Sansa lets out a long sigh through her nose but relents, head tilting to the side.

“Impatience does not become you, Petyr.” She draws him into a long, slow kiss, body softening against his, and when it ends nuzzles at his cheek, “I trusted you all those years. Trust me now.”

35.

Greywater Watch drifts through the swamps with the steady pace of a ship at sea.

This deep into the Neck there are all manners of creatures absent on the causeway: serpents that slip across the water in zig zags; birds as tall as men, with knobbed knees and red beaks; ridged beasts as long and thick as tree trunks, half hidden in kelp.

“Nasty things, those.” Thoros grouches with a swig of ale, “Swallowed Beric’s squire whole on the way here.”

Petyr spends the time avoiding the priestess and seeking Crannogmen, collecting friends and information like coins for his purse while the others wait, impatient, for sight of the Twins. With so few of them in such close quarters he dares not seek Sansa out, especially not in the Godswood where her brother has made camp.

That Melisandre’s words have wormed under his skin is another matter entirely.

Eventually the swamp gives way to the Green Fork, the cattails to grass, and the Twin’s ugly towers rise slowly into view.

“Greywater has never been this far south.” Howland Reeds tells him as they near, “Not with the Freys at the crossing.”

But the Freys are gone and in their place flies the direwolf of the Starks, the falcon of the Arryns, the trout of the Tullys. As the castle comes to a halt, and their boat reaches the riverbank, a retinue of lords and knights ride to greet them.

“The Twins are yours, Your Grace.” Calls the Blackfish’s hoarse voice.

“Thank you, Ser Brynden.” Sansa embraces him tightly, “It is good to meet you, uncle.”

“And you, child.” Brynden pulls back to appraise her with warm eyes, “You’re the very spit of Cat. And where’s the little one, Bran?”

“He prefers to stay on Greywater. You’ll see him soon enough.”

“Aye, that is good. I would see whatever kin I have left to me.” The Blackfish looks behind her then, gaze trailing across Brienne, Pod, settling on Petyr for a long moment before he looks back to Sansa, “We need words, I should think, Your Grace. And you, Petyr. There’s much you have missed.”

36.

It had always been a likely outcome but even Petyr hadn’t thought the bastard would fare this badly.

“You mean to say he’s married her?” Sansa seethes, “ _Before_ securing her men?”

They sit in Walder Frey’s old solar, the Queen, Petyr, Ser Brynden, Royce, and Yara Greyjoy, and Brienne to the side, impassive as stone.

“You men really do think with your pricks.” Yara takes a deep gulp of ale.

Petyr again reads the raven scroll in his hands.

“Olenna Tyrell had a part to play, I wager. That woman is even cannier than her granddaughter, and your brother is not well-versed in the art of politicking.”

Another miscalculation on their part. Why hadn’t Arya used the poison? Perhaps Petyr should have gone himself, distance be damned.

“My cunt uncle ferried her across the Narrow Sea for the promise of her hand. Jon Stark must be pretty indeed for her to give up the Ironfleet.”

Sansa’s eyes narrow, fingers trailing across a moth-eaten map. “How many ships do _we_ have?”

“Ten. Euron has a hundred and now they bear a red lion beside the kraken. But,” Yara leans forward in her chair, “It is no concern of ours, now. Daenerys lays siege to King’s Landing as we speak.”

“ _Now?_ How do you know?”

The Blackfish, brooding by the fire, releases a long and ragged sigh, his eyes pinched with irritation. “We have Jaime Lannister in our cells.”

Petyr does not miss the straightening of Brienne’s spine.

37.

“When they sent me to take Riverrun they might have told me these people already have a Queen.”

The Twins’ cells are as threadbare as Winterfell’s and yet the Kingslayer could just as easily be lounging on a chaise, sipping the finest wine in the realm in naught but his tunic and breeches. Even without his golden hand Jaime Lannister cuts an unmistakeable figure.

“Might have also told me _you_ switched sides.” If the man is annoyed by this he doesn’t show it, only continues with a shrug and a bemused grin, “Hang on. Didn’t you have _ten_ fingers before?”

“I believe that’s-“ Petyr pretends to count, “- _three_ kingdoms Cersei has lost in a year.”

With a cat-like stretch the Lannister rises to his feet and stalks closer.

“You’re a strange man, Baelish. Wasn’t it you who tipped us off to Ned Stark? At the brothel?” He slouches against the bars, “Why?”

“To see what would happen.”

Jaime laughs. “And to think I ignored you all these years.”

“Oh I’m much changed, I assure you. And so are you from what I hear.” Petyr raises his eyebrows suggestively, “The Lady Brienne argued most persuasively on your behalf.”

 _Ah, there it is_. The slightest stiffening of Jaime’s limbs, the smallest pause in his face before a feign o nonchalance. Emotion is a useful way to control a man. _Sansa knows that well_. This thought comes to Petyr often these days, unbidden, but now is not the time to dwell.

“I’d offer you gold and titles, if you weren’t already the richest man here.” Littlefinger smiles, “What would it take for Jaime Lannister to switch sides?”

38.

There is nothing else to do but advance their plans.

As expected, Royce and the other lords are not pleased to see the Kingslayer in their ranks, but a stern word from their Queen eases their worry if not their distrust. Jaime Lannister had sworn an oath to Catelyn Stark, after all, the very same oath as Brienne of Tarth, and that is all Sansa will hear of the matter.

Both towers are fortified, Greywater anchored beyond the bridge, soldiers readied and dressed and trained, moats dug and piled high with tinder, refugees and supplies ferried up and down the Trident by the Greyjoys, and four riders and four ravens are dispatched, two of each to both King’s Landing and Dragonstone.

Petyr allows himself to fall back into familiar patterns, advising and calculating and absorbing.

The Blackfish claps him on the shoulder and calls him ‘lad’ and pulls him into his cups, as it had been back _then_ , but as they finish bottles and reminisce, and as the pain of nostalgia twists in Petyr’s gut, his head is clear, his words are careful.

It takes all of his willpower not to go to her at night, to bury beneath her covers and between her arms.

_Emotion is a useful way to control a man._

39.

The Red Woman takes her drunkard and her resurrected man and leaves in the dead of night.

It is an ominous sign. Or it would be, had they noticed.

40.

Bran sends for them after a week.

For an old-young boy who claims not to be a lord, he has all the effortless posturing of one.

Sansa sends a page for Petyr, and when he reaches her waiting at the riverbank with her newly appointed Queensguard- a mere two, and neither are knights, but nobody can question the skill of Brienne and Clegane- he bestows upon them a winning smile and a half-bow.

“I am most honoured to have been called by the Three-Eyed Raven, Your Grace.”

“He called for us all, Littlefinger.” Clegane grunts, as if offended by Petyr’s grandstanding, a scowl twisting his ugly face, “And the Kingslayer.”

Sure enough Jaime Lannister arrives soon after, looking for all the realm a soldier on leave. Greywater is less than half a mile downriver and he and Petyr spar on the short row with jests of right hands and little fingers, as the Hound gurns over the oars and the ladies ignore them both.

Meera Reed greets them on the island.

“He’s waiting in the Godswood.” She says, and the girl’s smile is sad when Sansa steps forward, “No, Your Grace. He wishes to speak with Lord Baelish. Alone.”

Petyr’s hair prickles at four pairs of eyes levelled on the back of his head, but he only smiles amiably and follows on.

As ever, Bran Stark sits beneath the Weirwood.

“You are wondering why I called you here.” The boy says before Petyr announces himself, and turns to fix him with that gods-infuriating dead-eyed stare.

It is not so impressive a trick, Petyr thinks, to listen for footsteps and state the obvious.

“A natural thought, my lord. We’ve not often spoken to one another.”

For once Bran does not correct the title. A cold wind bristles through the trees and raises Petyr’s flesh, but the boy does not seem to feel it. He stares at Petyr’s belt for a long moment.

“That dagger started this all.” The words are murmured softly, internal musings turned aloud, “You told my mother you lost it to Tyrion Lannister. It seemed strange to me, that someone would lie to who they love.”

Petyr opens his mouth. Closes it again. The boy’s mother must have told him, sent him a raven, or Tyrion himself said so, perhaps. It is not so closely guarded a secret anymore.

“Some lies are love.” He settles on, finally, a mantra more than fifteen years old.

“I saw it all.” Bran reaches out and rests a hand on the Weirwood, “You and my uncle. Then you and my aunt. It hurt you, didn’t it? That my mother never said farewell. Perhaps that’s why you lied?” Petyr says nothing and the boy shakes his head. “Not everything is as you thought, Petyr Baelish. There are factors you had not dreamt of. Many lives will be lost because of it.”

Petyr can feel the wind grasping at his cloak now, can feel the chill soaking through to his bones. Or perhaps it’s his imagination, the whirling of his mind as he searches for escape.

“A most dramatic retelling, my lord.” Littlefinger smiles wryly, even as his hands clench at his side, “Come now, another tale.”

“You never told my sister about Myranda.”

Petyr stiffens. “And I suppose our dear Theon told _you_.”

“No. He has told no one.” Bran shakes his head again. “She cares for you more than you might think. Sansa, I mean. More than she will admit to herself. But she hasn’t forgiven you.”

“I know.”

“Yet you love her anyway.”

No, the wind is not Petyr’s imagination. It pulls at the snow in white spirals, rustles the Weirdwood so violently the branches creak and groan. A pale mist creeps towards them from the north, shrouding the walls of the castle, licking at the wheels of Bran’s chair. Again, the boy takes no notice. Petyr half-wonders if he’s talking with a ghost.

“Did you call me here just to frighten me?”

Bran smiles, only a little, face softening into some semblance of bemusement.

“And why would I do that? It’s too late to do anything about you.” The expression drops back to stone, “We might have slit your throat in Winterfell, but your part is not done. I needed you here. Now I need you with my sister.”

There is noise in the distance, a ruckus above the howling wind. _Danger_. Petyr is fast losing his patience.

“ _Enough_. What do you speak of?”

“You were right about my father. Honour doesn’t weight you down as it did him.” Bran reaches up and plucks a silver broach from his own cloak, offers it for Petyr to take, “Give this to Sansa. Tell her ‘the pack survives.’ She’ll understand.”

“ _I_ don’t understand.”

“I’m going to go now.” The boy sounds bored, “The boat is leaving. You had better run.”

And with that his eyes roll back into his head.

In the distance, a bird screeches.

Petyr has never been more confused in his life.

41.

Bodies in the mist.

Moaning, juddering, stumbling towards him. He turns and a figure blocks his path, gaunt and white, flesh like glass and bones that shine as bright as ice, gnarled fingers that reach out…

Petyr runs.

42.

The bodies and that _thing_ turn him away from Greywater’s docks. By the time Petyr can double back he hears the sloshing of water, yells and confusion, the Hound’s throaty curses. _Fuck_. He turns again, ducking and weaving through the mossy gardens _,_ dagger in hand as the sky darkens and- _fuck, not this way_ \- dead men stumble from the shadows. A corpse grasps at Petyr’s clothes and he wrenches free, tears his cloak from his neck with a swift slice of his dagger. _Fuck_. The Twins have fallen, likely, and their rangers have failed them, or perha- Another duck, another slice. Petyr throws a child into the wall. It crashes to the floor and drags itself towards him on rotting hands, ribs rattling against rubble.

 _Gods._ Would they ever have stood a chance against this? Dragons or no?

Clangs echo now, too, from the Crannogmen and the _others_ , yells and orders sounding around him. He keeps running. The edge of the crannog grows nearer, nearer, nearer, the riverbank is not far, and Petyr _jumps,_ arms flailing-

-and hits the riverbank, plunges back into the water, tangling in the reeds.

The dead men grab at his limbs and Petyr rips away, throws himself forward and scrambles up through the muck onto the bank, hands slipping in the mud. Before he can find his feet another tackles him, forces him down into the dirt- _gods_ , this one is large, more flesh than bone, and Petyr flounders against its weight, tries to wriggle out from underneath. Its face lowers, jaw unhinging- _fuck, fuck, fuck._

He screams when its teeth close on his ear, when the flesh rips and the blood gushes and- and-

A yell. A thud. The dead man shatters above him.

Petyr stares. “ _Uncle Brynden?_ ”

“ _Get up, lad!_ ” A dark, craggy demon on horseback, the Blackfish, furs beating in the blizzard, face half-hidden by mist. “ _Get off your arse! PETYR!”_

Petyr scrambles to his feet, dazed, and clasps Brynden’s outstretched arm to swing up onto the horse behind him.

“ _What of the Twins?”_ He’s screaming at the old man, probably, but one ear is ringing and the other is burning, clogged and muffled with blood and mud and river.

“ _Fallen!_ _I told the bastards to run._ ” The Blackfish spurs the horse on, cutting down skeletons as they go. “ _Where is my niece?_ ”

Petyr looks around, wild. Behind them the Twins burn, orange flame against black sky. _He brings the night_ , Jon Snow had said. Greywater is adrift now, floating away into the middle of the Fork- or does it move upstream? Petyr can’t tell. He turns his gaze down river and sees there a lone boat.

“ _There_!”

With a yank of the reigns Ser Brynden sends them barrelling through the mud, out of the chaos and down the riverbank toward. The dead men are following, Petyr knows; he looks back and sees a silhouette loping after them, larger than the trees.

A whoosh. A shadow curves through the air towards them.

Before the thought can register, Petyr grasps the Blackfish around chest and with all of his strength throws them both to the side.

There is a whinny and a crunch.

And then nothing as they plunge into darkness.

43.

A memory of an unloved boy:

He inhaled a lungful of water, once, playing at Crannogmen with Edmure.

The Blackfish pulled him from the river and held his little body as he choked and coughed and wheezed.

“I’ve got you, lad.” He had murmured, “I’ve got you.”

44.

A hand grabs Petyr by the scruff and pulls, up, up, up towards the light.

They surface together to blessed air.

“Over here!” Jaime Lannister’s voice rings out in the night and they follow the sound, swimming through the rippling waters until the silhouette of the boat fills their sights, until the dark figures on board become the Queen and her guard. “You lucky bastards.”

They grab hold of Petyr’s clothes as he reaches up, dragging him up and into the boat easily as a ragdoll, depositing the Blackfish beside him soon after. His ear is muffled still, the pain flaring at the bite of cold air on torn flesh, turning clear words into muddled mess.

“Petyr!” There’s a weight on his chest, cold hands on his face. Sansa. “Where’s Bran? _Where is he?_ ”

Petyr only looks at her, dumbly, head swimming as her fingers fist into his doublet and she _shakes_ him, full of desperation and anguish and so much pain it hurts just to look at her.

“He’s gone.” He chokes, finally, and her wail echoes in the burning sky.

45.

They drift.

The Hound stares.

Petyr can feel the weight of the wretch’s gaze, has felt it for the last few hours as the embers fade into the distance, as dawn paints hues of pink above them and they drift down the Fork. He doesn’t have to ask where their oars have gone.

It seems the least of their worries.

Time has dulled the pain in his head but the ache is there still, the sting at the ruin of his ear flaring with every gust of wind. It’s half gone, the ear, though Petyr has not yet felt what remains. He can’t bring himself to care.

He can’t bring himself to care about anything at the moment. Not even the stare of a dog.

Sansa stirs beside him and clutches Petyr’s arm a little closer, shifting her head against his shoulder. She hasn’t cried yet, or at least he hasn’t heard anything, but the sight of her must be tragic if nobody, not even her great-uncle, has taken issue with the Queen of the North clinging to a whoremonger. Petyr wouldn’t know. The moment the sun peeked over the horizon and torn through his head he’d buried his face in his hand, and he hasn’t looked up since.

His mind has never been so loud.

 _It won’t matter how far South you run_.

“Are we going to talk about what happened back there?” Unsurprisingly, it’s Jaime Lannister who breaks the silence. Petyr can hear the _tap tap_ of his golden hand against wood. “ _Dead_ men. I didn’t think you lot were being serious.”

“Neither did we.” The Blackfish’s rasp, “Now we know.”

“Yes, now we’ve lost a whole army-“

“Not a whole. Some will have escaped. They know to go south.” Brienne, now. They’re sat on either side of Petyr. The back and forth is enough to churn his stomach.

“So we re-group at King’s Landing.” Jaime, in a commander’s voice, “Convince Daenerys Targaryen to call off the siege, forget this damned war-“

“Who’s to say Daenerys is alive. Or your sister? You said Cersei has scorpions. They might have destroyed each other by now.”

“No, Daenerys made camp outside the walls. She was settling in-“

“Why would either of them believe us?”

The Hound interrupts with a half-growl low enough to rattle the air. He’s still staring.

“They say my brother is Daenerys’ Hand.” Jaime says. _He is_ , Petyr thinks, _and the last I heard he was doing a terrible job of it_. He says nothing but the disapproval must show in his bearing. “Tyrion was worried about the Wall. He told you himself, Baelish.”

He did, and Petyr and Varys and the rest of them had laughed at him.

A soft voice speaks up.

“We needed Bran.”

Petyr stiffens, feeling Sansa’s fingers dig in to his arm. It’s the first she has spoken since he’d said her brother was gone. Not dead, just _gone_.

He looks at her now with an unfocused gaze, twisting temple in hand and waiting for the fuzzy outlines of her face to settle. Sansa’s face is dry, stoic, and Petyr wonders when she perfected her mask. On the journey? In Winterfell?

Before?

Petyr squeezes her hand against his side, briefly, and returns his face to the safety of his palm, tries in vain to sort through the mess of his thoughts, pick reality from dream, what he has seen and what he believes.

Silence takes the boat again, broken only by the gentle laps of water against the hull.

And then, Jaime.

“Well, what the fuck do we do now, then?”

46.

They float. They sleep.

The shore is silent and so are they, until needs provokes debate. _Harroway, Saltpans, Maidenpool_. ‘tis an ever dwindling list, the places to alight.

“The further the better.” The Blackfish grumbles, and so they stay aboard.

They float. They sleep.

 _Let us float forever,_ Petyr thinks, as Sansa curls into his side, as her hair tickles his cheek and the Hound stares and stares. _Let us cross the narrow sea and leave this madness behind_.

It’s as close to doubt as he’s ever come, drifting down a river that once supped on his blood, and if he were a believing man he would take what happens next and call it a sign, an agreement from divine beings.

A screech in the sky.

Petyr looks up and sees scales, and wings, and _green_ , a silhouette against the cold sun.

A dragon.

47.

The galley finds them soon after, kraken and direwolf flying high on its mast.

Petyr weaves across the deck, uncoordinated, until Brynden pulls him first to the healer, a toeless wretch who pours liquor in his ear and wraps his head in too many bandages, and then below deck to a basin of cold water. They bathe using old cloth, scrubbing the blood and grime from their skin as best they can. Brynden has gained few scars in the last fifteen years; Petyr would know, he had counted them as a boy, pestered the man and dreamt of gaining his own. Oh the adventures he’d have, little Petyr thought, the tales he’d tell.

It’s only at the prickle of a heavy gaze that he realises this is the first Brynden has seen of noble Brandon’s gift.

Petyr turns his back to show Ramsay’s gifts, too.

48.

“Prefer a bed that doesn’t swing.” He mutters, later, when they lay to rest in threadbare hammocks.

Brynden chuckles. “Pretend you’re asleep and soon enough you will be.”

It’s a phrase Petyr heard all too often as a boy, and advice that never worked, so he grunts in reply and throws an arm over his eyes. A moment passes as the Blackfish moves away, briefly, before he returns and lies down.

Another moment.

“At some point,” Brynden says, quiet and solemn, “We are going to talk about Lysa. Not yet, but soon enough.”

Petyr keeps his breath steady and says nothing. A rustle as the Blackfish shifts.

“I never minded when you called me Uncle. Remember that, Petyr.”

49.

He finds Sansa on deck in the small hours, alone, watching the coast past them by. She doesn’t turn at his approach, doesn’t speak until he is beside her.

“They failed me.”

“Who have, Your Grace?”

“My siblings.” Her skin is the colour of pale milk, shadows beneath her eyes. “Jon. Arya.”

Petyr rests his hands on the rail. When he speaks, his voice is softer than a whisper.

“I suppose they have.”

Has she cried for Bran yet? He doesn’t know. Sansa’s attention is drawn when he digs into his tunic and retrieves the broach, shining and silver in the moonlight.

“That is Bran’s.” For the shortest of moments her eyes hold some hint of steel, her voice tinged with accusation.

 _She is tired,_ he lies, _that is all_.

“He asked me to tell you,” Petyr cradles her hand in his and places the broach into her palm, “ _The pack survives_. He said you’d understand.”

A beat. Sansa crumples against him. He holds her close against his chest, kisses her hair as the sobs wrack her body, as her tears dampen his tunic.

“I am here.” He murmurs, “I will always be here.”

50.

“I see how you look at her.” The Blackfish tells him as they rise the next morn, and there is only the slightest trace of anger in his words. “Do you never learn, Petyr?”

51.

King’s Landing is a ruin.

It’s strange, walking through a dead city.

There, a singer coined ballads of Robert and his whores. Here, a bakery pioneered sweet treats so rich half the noblewomen at court bankrupted their husbands for a taste. Children graced these streets, and the poor and the rich, and Petyr’s whores lingered at every corner in the sheerest of silks.

Now there is only rubble.

All that is left are shadows stained into stone, carcasses shrivelled and burnt and crumbling in the wind.

They are led through blackened streets by copper-skinned soldiers, all silent save for a man who calls himself ‘Grey Worm’, claps Jaime Lannister in irons, and orders resistance to be met with steel. They weave up and up to the Red Keep, Petyr and Sansa, Brienne and Brynden, Jaime and Clegane, every breath laced with soot and every step marked with a crunch until they reach the Great Hall.

Daenerys Targaryen sits the Iron Throne more easily than any King.

(He had seen her father once, the Mad King, scabbed with a thousand wounds and leering at Rhaegar like a dog after meat.)

The significance of an armed escort is not lost on Petyr, as though they could be anything more than refugees of a massacre. With their half-washed skin and rough spun clothing, with Jaime’s ruin of a hand and Petyr’s ruin of an ear and the Hound’s ruin of a face, he imagines they do not make the prettiest of sights.

“Welcome, Lady Sansa.” Daenerys’ voice is as regal as her bearing.

The men around her are uneasy. _Lady_. So, they are here to swear fealty. From the stiffening of Sansa’s spine she must realise the same and says nothing in reply.

The Dragon Queen continues, regardless. “And who are the rest?”

Again, nothing.

High up on the dais, the delicate features of her face twist into vague displeasure before smoothing once more. To her left, Jon shifts. Daenerys means to show her status with this display, it’s clear, sat on _her_ throne with _her_ husband beside her, with her Hand the imp and her- well, whatever the eunuch is to her, now. Master of Whispers again, perhaps?

_So, here we stand…_

Petyr is so very tired.

It is Varys who answers in the end, powdered words unchanged with the years.

“That is the Blackfish to Lady Sansa’s left, Your Grace, Ser Brynden of House Tully. And there Yara Greyjoy, our old friend Euron’s niece. Brienne of Tarth. Jaime Lannister there in the irons, you know. And Lord Petyr Baelish, Your Grace, Lord of Harrenhal, Lord Protector of the Vale and… Lord Paramount of the Trident, I believe?” Varys titters, and Petyr’s mouth twists into a sardonic smile, “So many titles for one man.”

Daenerys hums tersely. “How many monarch have you plead fealty to, Lord Baelish?”

“Fewer than Lord Varys.” Petyr’s reply displeases her.

“You framed my Hand for murder.”

“Did I?” Petyr feigns puzzlement, eyes flickering to Tyrion. The Tyrells are in bed with the Targaryens, yes, but it serves Olenna better to claim the kill for herself. _What proof do they have?_

He supposes it hardly matters now.

“My wife disappears just as the King is murdered,” Tyrion, at the least, has lost some of his humour since last they spoke. A large bushy beard now covers half of his face, shrouding his mouth as he speaks, “And then turns up in the North with _you_ , Baelish? You’ve always been a slippery one.”

Petyr only smiles.

This further displeases Daenerys. At her gesture two of Grey Worm’s men stalk towards him, spears in hand.

 _“_ Enough _.”_ Sansa steps between them, close enough that Petyr can smell the sweat on her skin. The men ignore her until their Queen mutters in another tongue. “I’ll thank you not to speak of me so, _husband_. Lord Baelish gave me his aid. That’s more than I can say of most. We waited at The Twins for you.”

Daenerys shifts in the throne. “I had business to attend to. We planned to join you after King’s Landing was mine.”

“While you attended your business, my people were slaughtered.”

“A Queen must-“

“A _Queen_ protects her people. Which people have you protected?”

This strikes a nerve within the Dragon. Her lip curls with a snarl, “I am the breaker of chains, I have saved _thousands_ -“

“In Essos.” Sansa interrupts, and there is not a drop of emotion in her voice, “Not Westeros. I will not bend the knee to you, who forsook the people you claim to rule.”

“Do not doubt my merit, Lady Sansa. I am the _rightful_ Queen of Westeros. Your brother has already bent the knee.”

“ _I_ rule the North, not my brother.”

“And the Riverlands. And the Vale.” The Blackfish declares now, craggy face set into stone, “We have a Queen, already, and her name is Stark.”

A tense moment follows, punctuated only by the rustle of cloth, the slither of gloved hands reaching for sheathed swords.

And then it is broken by a young boy pulling free of Davos Seaworth’s grip.

 _Weasel_ , Petyr thinks, and then, _Arya._

“It doesn’t matter who sits the Iron Throne. _Winter_ is coming.” Weasel-Arya cries, and turns a stranger’s eyes on their sister, “Where is Bran Stark?”

Silence.

52.

A truth of war, of death and the loss of what was: there is no time to mourn.

53.

Varys has a hand in choosing their chambers.

There is little doubt of this when a servant leads Petyr far from his old quarters, far from the Master of Coin’s tower and all of its hidden hollows and secrets, and far from anyone else, in fact. He and his Queen and all the rest are separated, kept away from Daenerys’ court of misfits, sequestered into carefully watched corridors.

But Sansa has no care for Varys’ ploys.

She slip into Petyr’s chambers as he drowses in the tub, wakes him with a soft caress, and slips naked and bare into the water and onto his lap.

Silence, between them.

Petyr has no energy for placations, nor japes at their captors’ expense, nor protests as Sansa unwinds the bandage from his head and begins to clean away the pus and blood beneath. It’s slow work. With every grimace and gasp she presses a kiss to his temple, holds her lips there until he relaxes back into her touch. She looks older than her years now: face creased in concentration, shadows deepening beneath tired eyes, the peaks of her breasts dipping in and out of the water with gentle ripples. Petyr watches her through heavy-lidded eyes, head tilted back against the rim.

She runs oil through his hair, and he through hers, washing away grime and sweat with wetted rags and open palms and probing fingers.

The feel of her skin against his, sweeping across his chest, his jaw, into his hair, loosens the taut coils of Petyr’s limbs, leaches the tension from his bones.

She kisses him then for a long time, so sweetly, so softly, until the water cools around them and their only warmth is the press of his chest to hers, rising, falling, rising, falling. And when they are near asleep against each other Petyr lifts her into his arms and carries her to bed.

Sleep finds them quickly, tangled beneath the furs.

54.

When he wakes, Arya Stark is sat on the windowsill eating an apple.

“I’d have thought you’d be a light sleeper.” She says with a shrug, “S’pose not.”

“How long have you been there?”

“Long enough. No need to cover yourself now, Littlefinger. You sprawl in your sleep, did you know that?” She shrugs again and takes another bite, “I’ve seen bigger.”

Sansa is stirring beside him now, pulling blearily at Petyr’s arm until awareness hits her all at once.

“Arya!” She dives beneath the sheets.

“Morning, sister. You look well.”

“What are you _doing_?”

“You weren’t in your room so I came here.” Arya watches Petyr with disinterest as he stands from the bed, naked and shameless, and begins to pull on his breeches. She doesn’t bother to look at her sister when she speaks. “Jon doesn’t know you’re fucking Littlefinger so you’d best keep it a secret. The Spider has spun him all of sorts of tales.”

 _Truths, more like_. The queer look in Arya’s eye tells him she knows this. Petyr finishes with his laces and crosses to the table, bare-chested.

“We haven’t any wine, I’m afraid.” He says when the younger girl refuses an offer of water. Sansa refuses also, busy holding the sheet over her breasts, “Perhaps you could ask your new Queen for Arbor Gold.”

“She’s not my Queen.”

There is venom in the girl’s voice. Good.

Sansa’s lip curls. “Jon-“

“Jon’s in love.” Arya waves a hand in disgust, “But even after he wedded and bedded the bitch she wouldn’t give up her plans. I tried, Sansa, truly. It’s the only reason Jon bent the knee, fat lot of good that did.” She becomes suddenly solemn, brown eyes shining, “I shouldn’t have left you. I could have protected Bran.”

“No, you couldn’t have.” Petyr leans against the bed post, “Why are you here?”

Arya places the apple core carefully onto the table and studies the dirt beneath her nails.

“She burnt this city to the ground. I heard their screams.”

 _If the Dragon Queen had waited long enough, Cersei would have done it herself._ Petyr does not mention the caverns of wildfire. Let them think the destruction was Daenerys’ alone. Sansa gathers the bedsheets about her like a gown and perches on the edge of the bed, eyes gleaming.

“And who else heard?”

Arya’s smile is so wicked that for a heartbeat Petyr looks at the two of them and imagines wolves and shadows, and cold steel at his throat.

In his chest there is something like pride.

“We need her.” He reminds them, thinking of dead men.

Arya only leans back in her chair.

“For now. You want to make my sister Queen, don’t you?”

55.

They are a disparate council: two unbending Queens, wildlings and bastards and whoremongers and imps and eunuchs.

And one old and spiteful crone.

“What’s to stop us all abandoning this ruin of a realm? Can they swim?” Olenna Tyrell’s point seems perfectly valid to Petyr, yet it meets a chorus of anger and honour and passionate speeches better suited to a battlefield. They are too attached to this slab of earth, he knows, with their ancestral homes and their old blood.

All of it is pitifully little against what creeps south.

After, Varys finds him overlooking Blackwater Bay, counting the husks of the Ironfleet.

“It is most impressive,” Petyr calls without turning, “for you to have fucked things up quite this badly.”

The eunuch has an endless well of scowls and eye-rolls for Littlefinger and his antics. What he wears now is strangely subdued.

“Have I? _My_ Queen sits the Iron Throne.”

Petyr tucks his hands into his sleeves and straightens his back, affects an effortless drawl.

“ _I did what I did for the good of the Realm._ ” He mocks, “ _Chaos. A gaping pit waiting to swallow us all_. Tell me, my friend, what pit has swallowed the people?”

Varys’ lips thin. “I made a mistake.”

“Hm, I’m sure. When you look at your Queen do you see her father?”

“You don’t know her as I do.”

“You’re right. I wager she has more blood on her hands than even Aerys.”

The grief roils from the eunuch in waves of deepening breaths. _So many old friends_ , _so changed_.

“I had never thought _I_ would end on the wrong side, with you on the right.” Varys mutters finally, an eyebrow quirked, “You’re a changed man, it seems. If this is the effect Queen Sansa has on you over so little time, imagine if you _had_ married Catelyn Tully all those years ago.”

Petyr ignores the slight. “ _Queen_ Sansa?”

The Spider only smiles and scuttles away.

56.

As ever, as always, he finds Sansa beneath the dying limbs of the Heart Tree.

“They call this Dragon’s Breath.” Petyr gestures towards the dark red flowers beneath her feet and receives a withering look for his words.

“How fitting.” Sansa reaches out and traces the mouth carved in the bark. This Heart Tree is not Weirwood, like those up north, and looks all the more boring for it. “I thought I heard Bran’s voice.”

A raven perches in the branches above, watching.

 _You have a part to play_ , Bran had said, _I need you with my sister._

“You knew me even then, didn’t you?” She asks, “ _Come to the godswood tonight if you want to go home_. One might think you were having me followed.”

“I only took an interest, Your Grace.” Petyr smiles.

“Your Grace… I like those words in your mouth.” Sansa turns and closes the distance between them, winding her arms around his neck, “Say them again.”

“ _Your Grace.”_ He whispers against her lips. Her hold tightens.

“I want to go home, Petyr, if we survive this. I want you to take me home.”

Petyr blinks and pulls her flush against him. “Sansa. If we survive, _King’s Landing_ will be your home.”

She goes cold at that, glances briefly at his lips and pulls away.

“I thought you would say that.”

57.

Pushing Sansa from his mind is as easy as draining the sea.

 _Control._ There was something in her eye he hadn’t liked, back in the Godswood, but there is no time to dwell on it now. Her mother had been a terrible liar and her father worse, and yet Petyr doubts anyone else could have learnt to lie so easily as Sansa Stark. A failing on his part? Or a success? _Push it aside._

There is more to do.

For all of her airs and claims, Daenerys knows nothing of what drives a realm.

 _Coin_.

“I served as Master of Coin for years,” Petyr tells her as they count copper and grain, “I daresay the treasury flourished during that time.”

“For all else Tyrion speaks of you, skill with coin is the only praise.”

“I am honoured to have been spoken of at all.”

He amuses this Dragon Queen, if the twinkle in those violet eyes are true. Good, sweet Petyr, the ever-helpful little Lord with his wit and his charm. A familiar mask. It almost makes him nostalgic for Robert’s reign.

“Have you ever travelled to Essos, Lord Baelish?”

“I have, Your Grace.” Petyr smiles, “My Great-Grandfather was a Braavosi sellsword and my father kept a house there. It passed to me when he died.”

“You have foreign blood?” The words are no insult in her mouth, spoken so unlike Royce, “I’ve met many a Braavosi sellsword. I must say you don’t have the manner.”

“My talents lie in other areas, Your Grace. You could say I broke tradition.”

Daenerys studies him, a knowing smile playing at her lips. “Tradition is best when broken.”

“Just so.”

When the quiet Naathi girl takes the ledger from the table, the Queen’s smile leaves her face.

“It is common in Essos for older men to take young wives.” She says and, when Petyr feigns confusion, continues, “I cannot have you on my small council if you take Lady Sansa in marriage.”

He chuckles lowly. “You misunderstand, Your Grace. I care for the girl a great deal, but as an uncle. I loved her mother long ago.”

“My husband is grateful she’s safe.” Her delicate brows furrow in sympathy, “I can’t imagine what it was like.”

 _Like death_ , Petyr doesn’t say, _or something worse_. Instead he smiles graciously, “I’m glad he and Lady Sansa were reunited. I know all too well what it is to lose someone who was like a sister.”

“But Sansa _is_ Jon’s sister.”

The Queen’s eyes narrow and Petyr hesitates.

“Yes, Your Grace, of course. A slip of the tongue.”

His words are too quick, he knows, too careless. She takes the bait with both hands.

“No, it was not.”

“Forgive me. It is not for me to say. Please excuse me, I must see to the preparations.”

58.

It is then that Melissandre arrives at the gates with a drunkard, a resurrected man, and fifty thousand soldiers clad in blood.

“You ran.” Sansa tells her.

“I waited. I gathered who was left,” The woman is not contrite; those red eyes slide past Sansa, past Daenerys, past Petyr and Varys and the rest, and settle on Jon Snow with devotion, “for you, Lord.”

59.

Sansa does not come to him that night.

It’s a weakness, he is sure, that Petyr has become so used to falling asleep to the sound of her breath, that a bed empty of her is no comfort.

After the candle burns halfway to the wick, after he is sure she has forgone his company, he leaves the warmth of his room and walks the darkness of the Red Keep until he comes upon a familiar sight: Brienne, at her Queen’s bedchambers.

“Lady Brienne.” Petyr smiles as though the small hours aren’t fast approaching, “I have something to ask of Her Grace, if she is not yet abed?”

And to his surprise and suspicion, the wench turns without question and raps on the door. “Lord Baelish to see you, Your Grace.”

Inside, his Queen sits in her cups.

“Was the choice between my bed and your wine?” Petyr asks, playful.

Sansa is in no mood to jest, it seems, though her gaze is clear when she turns to him. The firelight sets her hair aglow, and the shift she wears is sheer enough to see her form silhouetted against the cloth.

“I was trying one of your tricks.” She cocks her head, “I admit I expected you at least to last the night.”

His lips twist. “And what was the intended outcome?”

“To be sure your affection for me had not waned.”

“Never, my love.”

Sansa places her cup aside and stands, nears him slowly. With deft fingers she begins to unclasp his doublet.

“Sweetling, the door is unloc-”

“Brienne won’t let anyone pass.”

“It would be wiser to send her away.”

She raises one, red eyebrows and pulls his belt from his waist, dropping it to the floor, dagger and all. Petyr wets his lips.

“And leave your Queen unprotected? _Un_ wise, I say.” Her hands push the doublet from his shoulders, pull his tunic up and over his head, trail down his scar to grasp at his breeches. “Shall we play a game, my lord? I know you like them so.”

“Sansa-” The warning is barely more than a rumble in his throat before he is shushed.

Sansa eases his breeches down past his hips, palms smoothing over his rear, until he stands naked in her chambers, and she, fully clothed.

“Lie on the bed.” She sidles away for another sip of wine.

Petyr humours her, laying down on his back with his head pillowed atop clasped hands, exposed, vulnerable.

“Does this please Your Grace?”

“It does not, Lord Baelish.” Sansa scowls at the softness between his legs and straddles his waist, shift pooling around her hips, and the feel of her slickness is enough to make Petyr’s cock twitch. She yanks at his hair until his throat is bared. “Not yet.”

There is a moment, then, a flicker of doubt that taps against the back of Petyr’s skull- or perhaps it is the beating of his heart, a dull _thu-thud_ in his ears- before it’s smothered by hitching breaths and Sansa’s teeth at his neck. She bites hard enough to hurt, nibbling and suckling, lower and lower until she reaches his collarbone and presses her tongue flat against the knot of scar there, gliding down, down, down the jagged furrow. Petyr shudders beneath her, again and again, hands clutching at the headboard when she takes him into her mouth.

“ _Sans_ -“ A choked cry lost to pleasure as her nails gouge at his thighs, and then suddenly she is rising above him, and then sinking down, mouth slack, eyelids fluttering.

When her hips roll atop his, he groans. When they kiss, he tastes himself on her tongue.

And when she presses the dagger against his throat, he almost doesn’t feel its bite.

“What did you promise me?” She hisses, and Petyr can smell the wine on her breath, “What did you promise me in Winterfell?”

He can’t help but move beneath her, hips bucking gently.

“Me. All of me.”

“And what did I say I would do if you betrayed me?”

Petyr blinks. “I haven’t betrayed you, my love.”

“Not _yet_.” Sansa begins to move again, grinding down hard into his lap, “Come, come, don’t be so hushed or Brienne will think I must be saved.”

“ _Sansa-_ “

The blade bites deeper.

“I heard a story, once, about a brothel-keep and a whore.”

She rocks again, clenches her hips and draws from Petyr a strangled groan, “The whore wouldn’t be controlled, and this brothel keep, he _thrived_ on control, couldn’t have her striking out on her own. She was too good.”

Blood begins to collect at the hollow of his throat, but he can’t bring himself to care. Sansa is panting now, words breathy, sweat beading on her skin as she undulates.

“There was only one thing to do. He beat her. He beat her until she couldn’t walk.” A hand caresses his chest, “And then he held her, and he bathed her, and he fed her. He bandaged her wounds and whispered sweet comfort.”

Her lips brush against his.

“And the whore was _so grateful_ the brothel-keep fixed her, she forgot he was the cunt that beat her.”

Sansa thrusts her tongue between his lips and tears from him another moan before she pulls away, a hand on his neck, the other on the knife, beauty twisting between fury and lust.

“Sometimes I forget you’re the reason for all of this. And then I am reminded.” The knife cuts further and Petyr hisses, “You told Daenerys about Jon. He thinks Daenerys found the truth herself but I know better. Ask my permission before you next move a piece.”

“Your permission? You forget who taught you, sweetling.” He rises then with a cruel laugh and the blade rises with him, trapped between their chests. “Is this not what you wanted? You could be the greatest ruler this realm has ever seen, Sansa. Do you doubt it?”

He pushes up beneath her in short, brutal thrusts, fingers clawing at her hips, and Sansa quivers in his lap.

“You will be Queen, my love, the one true Queen.”

Petyr tosses the dagger to the ground as she whimpers. He kisses her. Again. And again. Until each kiss melds into the next and his lungs begin to burn.

“And you?” Her voice is strained, face twisting in ecstasy, “What will you be?”

Petyr growls, burrows his nose between her breasts, hands sliding over her back, her sides, up her neck into her hair.

“I will be _yours_. The rest is no matter.”

Sansa shoves him back onto the bed.

“How can I believe you? After everything?” Her hands push against him, weight bearing down on his chest as she rocks, faster and faster, until Petyr is groaning with her, “You know only how to lie.”

Oh, this has never been about Petyr and his attentions, no, it is another game between them, another manipulation from one liar to another. For the first time, he does not want to play. His grip stills her.

“I have never lied about who I am.” He whispers, “Not to you, Sansa. I am no hero from a song, you know that well enough. Those men rot beneath the dirt and here I am.”

“Many of those men rot _because_ of you.”

“Yes. But I will not apologise for surviving. Whatever I did, I would do again.” Petyr holds her gaze, unyielding, hands drifting along her thighs, “What do I say of the past?”

“Mourn its passing or look to the future. Pretty words.”

He suppresses a grimace at her tone. “We are more alike than you think, my love. We survived _together_.”

“No.” Sansa shakes her head, but Petyr can see the shiver ripple across her skin, “No, I would have survived without you.”

“Is that your wish? To survive without me?”

“You said it yourself once. I don’t want friends like you.”

How pure.

Petyr lurches up and cages her in his arms, pulls her back down and presses them skin to skin, bucking and thrusting until she is mewling and whining against him, crying out, wanton and _loud_.

“I don’t want to be your _friend_.” He pants into her hair, “You have my heart, Sansa. Do with it what you will but don’t deny that I love you.”

Her voice is a hoarse moan in his ear. “And- what will you do- with _my_ heart?”

“Feed it. Water it. Make a Godswood of it.”

She rises again and he watches as she writhes above him, slow, body shining with sweat.

“ _Petyr_.” She sighs, “You can have it, my love. Petyr, Petyr. _I need you_.” 

It’s all too much. Petyr’s chest swells and burns, his breath catches, his entire body trembles. With a quick twist he has her beneath him, nails clawing at his back, both slick with each other.

“ _My love_.” She sighs, again, and holds his face in her hands, and Petyr thinks he might die here and now, wrapped in her arms while the dead march on the city.

It is a rude awakening, then, when the next word from her lips is “ _Jon_!”

60.

Hands around his throat, a weight on his chest, stone at his back.

It’s a moment before Petyr realises he is on the floor.

There is shouting, past his own gasps for breath, past Jon’s grunt of effort: Sansa, pulling at her brother’s back.

“ _Jon_ , stop it! Get off him!” He takes no notice of her- _gods,_ the Stark men are strong, “Brienne!”

Footsteps and a struggle, and scarcely a moment later the weight is gone. Petyr curls into himself, starved lungs wheezing, turning to hide his manhood- _too late for that._ Another moment and Sansa is knelt beside him, naked as a babe still, her hands on his face, his neck, his chest.

Both Jon and Brienne avert their eyes most brilliantly.

“Sansa, this is not proper.” The boy seethes to the wall, “This is not honourable.”

But his sister will have none of it. When Sansa stands, Brienne tears her own cloak to cover her, and when she speaks, her voice is ice.

“You have no right to tell me what is _honourable_ , Jon. Did honour bring you to the Riverlands?”

Jon flinches like a man struck.

“Forgive me, I-“ He stops, head bowed, hands curling into fists at his side, “The White Walkers are here. Get to Maegor’s Holdfast, both of you.”

And he whirls from the room, longsword in hand.

61.

Petyr takes care to re-dress and leave on a separate path.

When Sansa enters the holdfast, a little while afterwards, he is already lazing against the wall and bickering with the imp.

“How does my wife fuck, Baelish? Pray tell, I never got to taste her myself.”

“A pity, my lord, but neither have I. I wager she tastes better than your whore.”

“Better than her corpse, certainly.”

“Why, did you sup one last time before you fled?”

The dwarf tires of him soon enough, slinking away to kiss Sansa’s hand and then to glower out of the small window, aglow with the white of moonlight and the orange of flames. Even within the confines of Maegor’s Holdfast, far from the city’s defences and trenches of fire, the sound of war is thunderous.

A dragon’s roar. Shouts. The screeching of ice.

Those taking shelter are not expected to fight, whether for age or ability or status, yet still the dagger at Petyr’s side is a reassuring weight. He’d refused Brienne’s offer of a longsword; if it came time to use it, the war would already be lost. Better that he meet his end by his own hand.

It’s a comforting thought: power over death.

The time passes in halves.

The first: they are a chattering rabble, the old with tales, the young with play, the rest with hopes and dreams for victory, with reassurances for loved ones.

And then: the quietening, the sudden realisation, the fear of mortality. Mothers clutch at their children and the rest fall silent.

When the thunder rises, when the roars rattle the stone and the heat of dragonfire presses in, Sansa sits by his side

“They’re frightened.” She whispers.

“They should be,” Petyr crosses his arms over his chest, notes the dusting of ash on the windowsill, “The Queen of Thorns had the right of it, we should have sailed for Essos long ago. Have you been practising your mummery, sweetling?”

Sansa is not amused. “And give up so easily? Wouldn’t you rather be brave?”

“Giving up does not make you craven, my Queen, only canny.”

She shakes her head, gaze distant. From outside rings a piercing screech, and then, nothing.

“The Red Woman told me something.” Sansa murmurs.

“Something cryptic, I’d imagine.”

She turns to Petyr with blue eyes that see through him, “You know the secret passages to the shore.”

“You want to die under the open sky? Good of her to suggest it.”

She shakes her head again. “We need to leave. All of us. Help me lead them, Petyr.”

“Are you mad?” He nods sharply to the four score people huddled around them, “Who’s to say we aren’t buried underground? Or they haven’t breached the keep?”

 _You are a luckless man,_ the Red Woman had told him, _to lose two loves in one lifetime._

But Sansa kisses him then, in full view of all, far longer and hungrier than any lie can brush away, and _Gods_ he is so easily moved by this woman- weak, always weak for her- like clay beneath her hands. She pulls back and rest her forehead against his, breath ghosting against his lips, ignoring the weight of the stares.

“I’m going,” Her thumb strokes across his cheek, “With or without you.”

62.

Petyr has made few mistakes in his life.

Later, he is never sure if this is one.

63.

They run.

Varys leads, a eunuch and his flock; he had been the architect of these passages, after all, back when he was but the whisperer of a mad king.

Sansa grips Petyr’s hand as the frost licks at their heels.

64.

Mistakes to ponder beneath cold sheets:

He shouldn’t have listened.

He should have sailed with her to Essos, long ago, before the Vale, before Winterfell, before all of it. Before they had even begun down this path.

He should have stepped in front of the sword.

65.

She had held him so close, all those months ago in the Winterfell cells.

She’d held him to her chest, whispered to him, kept him breathing through comfort alone.

Her and her warm skin, and her red hair, and her blue eyes.

66.

The White Walker melts away into nothing long before her torn chest stills.

She hadn’t even died beneath the open sky.

This thought is what brings Petyr back to clarity, this and the slickness of her blood on his skin, and the scent of her hair in his nose. It’s been years since he last wept, decades even. The pain of it tears through him, juddering and shaking against her, enough to want to pick up his dagger and slice through flesh and veins and- and-

No. Sansa would not want it.

She could be only asleep in his arms.

When he looks up, Tyrion’s crooked face is wrought with grief.

“We need to leave.” The imp says, “Baelish, come, let her go.”

But Petyr’s mind is already working, pulling and discarding memories, turning over all he knows.

“She’s _gone_ , my friend.” Varys’ voice, behind him.

The pieces click into place.

67.

Petyr plunges into the darkness, through the winding tunnels, up and down stairs, uncaring of what might reach out of the black. By the time he emerges in the Red Keep his skin is sticky with sweat and blood, Sansa is heavy in his arms.

Maegor’s Holdfast is nothing more than a smouldering pile of stone. The significance of it all barely registers in Petyr’s mind.

Further and further he staggers, through the roaring city streets, towards the noise, towards the clash of swords. Melisandre _must_ be at the trenches, so convinced she was of her place in this war.

Sansa’s skin is cold. King’s Landing is aflame.

In the sky two dragons battle, blue breath and red, colours twisting bright against the night. The screams of men are a cacophony louder than their battle cries. Petyr ignores all, on and on and on. Another burst of flame from above and he stumbles on the cobbles, clutching Sansa tight as he keeps his feet, barely. It is too late to turn by the time he sees the dead men.

An axe strikes them down.

Petyr sees a duo of silhouettes and praises every god that doesn’t exist.

“ _Sansa!_ ” Arya Stark emerges from the smoke with a sword in each hand. Behind her the Hound spits ash onto the ground. “ _Sansa?_ ”

“Where’s the priestess? Where is Melissandre?” Petyr wonders if she sees that her sister is a corpse.

“The wench is dead.” Growls the Hound, and his eyes linger on Sansa. _He knows. He knows what I need._ “Follow me. Thoros is at the Sept.”

He makes no move to take her and Petyr is grateful for it. They move through the streets with haste, quicker than Petyr had alone, Clegane and Arya carving a path until the broken Great Sept of Baelor looms above them all. With an almighty crack a burst of cold flame smashes against the dome, punching through stone and severing spires.

It comes down on their heads.

68.

It cannot be more than seconds before Petyr wakes.

Clegane and Arya are gone. Sansa is trapped beneath him.

The Sept. Thoros.

He gathers her into his arms and struggles again to his feet, stumbling through the rubble, towards the square. The smoke is so thick he can hardly see but there, in the distance, is a single, long flame. Petyr moves to it like a moth to the stars, battered and limping.

“Thoros! Thoros of Myr!”

But it is not Thoros.

Jon Snow’s eyes peer out at him through the grey. At his feet lies the body of Daenerys Targaryen.

“What-“ Petyr chokes, “ _What have you done?_ ”

There is grief etched into the boy’s face and the lines deepen at the sight of his sister. Petyr collapses to his knees with a desperate moan.

“Bring her back,” He cries, to nobody, to the ground, to the sky, “ _Please_. It’s not her time.”

As Petyr sobs, Jon lowers to the groud and leans forward, presses his lips against the burning sword, and then Sansa’s forehead, and then her lips.

And then he vanishes into the smoke, leaving Petyr and two dead Queens.

69.

Petyr kisses her cheeks, her eyelids, her head. He cards his fingers through her hair and traces the outline of her nose.

 _Take me_ , he thinks, _Take my life for hers_.

There are no dragons anymore. The sounds of battle wither. In the distance, a bloody dawn creeps over the horizon.

When he kisses Sansa’s lips, finally, they are warm beneath his.

“ _Petyr_.”

70.

The day is won.

Nobody rejoices.

The flames of the funeral pyres burn hotter than dragonfire.

71.

There is an astounding amount of housekeeping following victory.

“This part is oft left out of the history books.” Petyr says, more than once, “No ballads are sung of recovery.”

Daenerys’ foreigners stay to burn her body and no longer, mourning even as they set sail. Nobody knows the truth of her death but Jon and Petyr, not even the boy’s sisters, and it suits the both of them to keep the secret.

“I cannot lie.” Jon tells him, and Petyr spreads his hands.

“Then don’t. Did Ned Stark ever lie to you? You Starks have a talent for withholding truth.”

The realm must be rebuilt on a half-truth: the sacrifice of two Queens.

72.

They call her Sansa the Undying.

It is a rare thing, to live and die and live again. He asks her once, what had she seen on the other side?

“Nothing.” Is her reply, “There is no other side.”

She is not the same as she was.

Petyr doesn’t know her mind anymore, doesn’t know if she hates him for bringing her back, if she hates Jon for it, too. He can’t bring himself to ask. Night after night she wakes screaming in his arms, face wet, skin cold. Most oft she withdraws into herself, then, silent and _apart_ ; others, she pulls him close, rests his head above her heart and presses her fingers to the pulse at his neck as if the beat of it conducts her own.

“ _Sansa_.” Petyr whispers, clutching at her shift, “My love, my Queen. Forgive me.”

She quiets him with a kiss, and they lie awake until morning returns.

73.

A week before Sansa’s coronation she pours them a cup of wine.

“Are we celebrating?” He asks with a smile.

The wine is dry, a fine vintage from the Arbor, and Petyr sips at it, lazing in a chair as she stokes the fire.

“I’ve chosen my small council.” Sansa crosses the room to him. She takes the cup and sets it aside, hands resting on his shoulders as his own grip her waist.

They’ve discussed the council for weeks now, exchanging prospects and opinions over breakfast, lunch, and supper. Doubtless she has noticed his suggestions are his own men, all low-born or foreign and with skill that far outshines their noble counterparts.

This is our chance to build a new realm, Petyr had said, without the limits of the last.

He leans back in his chair and massages her hips. “Tyrion accepted?” Sansa nods. “And Varys?” Another nod and a small smile. Petyr returns it.

Slowly his hand moves to her stomach. This question he asks with his eyes.

Sansa removes her hands from his shoulders and helps him lift the gown, inch by inch until soft skin comes into view. The wound is an ugly thing: a gaping black tear of dead flesh that cuts across her navel. There is no blood, no new skin. She does not like when Petyr touches it, so he takes her hands instead and lets the gown fall.

“The Maester says it won’t scar,” She says, quietly, “because it won’t heal. Jon’s haven’t.”

“Does it hurt still?”

“No. I forget it exists sometimes. I could pretend it doesn’t if I don’t see it every day.”

He kisses her knuckles, lingering over the ring on her thumb. “The feeling will pass, my love. You will be stronger for it.”

Sansa’s gaze is soft. She frees her hands to smooth his hair, presses his face against her, strokes the back of his head as he inhales her scent. There’s a pleasant fuzziness in his limbs, a light-headedness to his mind.

“I suppose you wish to be my King.”

Petyr hums into her gown. “If that is your wish.”

A pause.

“It is. Truly, it is.” Her voice is tremulous. Petyr stiffens at the frailty of it, feels her pull him closer still. “But I can’t fix the realm with the man who broke it.”

A soft sob.

Petyr pulls back and the world spins, his body lurching in its seat as he looks up at her. A drop of water lands on his cheek.

“Wha-“ Petyr squeezes his eyes shut, breathes deeply for a moment, wills the nausea away, “What do you mean?”

“The small council have a condition for my coronation.” Her smile is sad, “You.”

He stares at her.

_The wine._

With a snarl Petyr pushes back and leaps from the chair, only for his knees to give and send him crashing into the desk, down to a sprawl on the stone floor. _No_. She would never do this, his love, she _couldn’t_ kill him.

_Get up. Get up._

But the world is spinning and Petyr’s tongue is loose in his mouth. His body sags, down onto the ground until he feels like nothing more than a puddle of man. _Sansa._ He can’t even say her name.

The last he feels before the darkness is her touch, and nothing more.

74.

A memory of a broken boy:

It did not take much to break.

75.

He wakes in a cabin rocked by the sea, head foggy, lips warm.

The door is locked. His father’s ring sits on his finger. There is a note tucked into his tunic, written in her elegant hand.

_If you want to build a better home, first you must demolish the old one._

_Do not return, my love._

Petyr is not an angry man, nor a violent one.

When the guards bring food, he sits bloody-knuckled in the midst of wreckage.

76.

Braavos is unchanged from his boyhood visits.

Petyr is much changed.

…

_More._

1.

He has done this before.

He has climbed a realm’s rungs from a penniless boy to a High Lord, from the port of Gulltown to the court of King’s Landing, from beneath their feet to above their graves.

All had been for a simple goal. Never again be the boy bleeding in the Trident.

No matter that it was for naught.

Now he has friends already, in this city of wealth and power, of courtesans and banks.

Petyr thrives.

This time he is not content to play from the shadows.

2.

The brothels are first.

Then the courtesans.

The magisters are trickier, but they are men of deceit and deceit is Petyr’s meat and mead.

And the Keyholders, trickier still. The Iron Bank has little love for him; they require a little murder and a little more bribery.

It’s all too easy.

The pieces are already in place by the time the Sealord of Braavos is dead.

3.

There are no Westerosi at his inauguration.

4.

He dreams of her often.

The ache in his chest does not soften with time.

5.

She marries a Dornishman, some plain and stout Martell whose sister sits the Sunspear throne.

 _Clever girl_ , Petyr thinks, _keep them in line_.

The stories of Westeros are fantastical on this side of the narrow sea, tales murmured to children as they lay abed. They say the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms is undead, a great beauty with skin as cold as ice and pale as the moon, with hair that burns in the sun and eyes that glow in the night. _Sansa the Undying_ , they whisper. _She is death made flesh_.

Her kingdoms thrive and he watches from a distance.

They say it is the longest Winter in living memory and yet Petyr lies in his bed and he sweats.

6.

Every year for her nameday, from the year he is first abandoned, Petyr sends her a gift.

Three crates of lemons and a glass mockingbird.

7.

A woman arrives at the Sealord’s Palace and introduces herself as ‘no one’.

“How may I be of service?” He asks, and Arya Stark smiles with another girl’s mouth.

“I’m sailing west of Westeros.”

“For what reason? There’s nothing there.”

“You don’t know that. Shall we be the first to found out?”

He gives her half a dozen ships and two score men in exchange for a cut. As she leaves, strolling from his solar with her hands in her pockets, she tosses one last thing over her shoulder.

“She still misses you, you know. After all this time.”

8.

The nameday after her husband’s untimely death, Petyr sends her nothing and waits.

9.

She comes.

10.

“I’d thought you had forgotten. Or perhaps died.” She says, as if discussing the weather, and Petyr smiles.

“A letter would have sufficed, Your Grace. You came a long way for naught.”

“Not for naught.” She reaches out, traces the grey of his hair, the lines of his face, “You were trying to manipulate me.”

Petyr catches her hand.

“Did it work?”

.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, your feedback is fuel.
> 
> I may have fun wriitng a Sealord Petyr, attention span allowing. Interested?


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